Town (mod. Bad Mergentheim, Germany) in Franconia on the river Tauber southwest of Wurzburg; the headquarters of the Teutonic Order from 1525 to 1809.
In the later twelfth century, Mergentheim belonged to nobles of the Hohenlohe family. Albrecht of Hohenlohe, who had accompanied Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa on the Third Crusade (1189-1192), donated the parish church to the Hospitallers in 1207. However, three of his five nephews, Andreas, Heinrich (Henry), and Friedrich (Frederick), who had participated in the Fifth Crusade (12171221), decided to join the Teutonic Order. When they divided their inheritance with their two lay brothers, Gottfried and Conrad (1219), the Teutonic Order obtained two castra and other possessions in and around Mergentheim. The descendants of Gottfried and Konrad, however, retained estates and vassals with castra in Mergentheim. In this context the meaning of castrum is ambiguous. Apparently there were two large castles at Mergentheim, one of which became the nucleus of the Teutonic Order comman-dery. But the settlement must have also included a number of fortified houses with towers, which belonged to vassals of the Hohenlohe family and which sometimes reverted to direct control of the lords.
Heinrich von Hohenlohe, one of the three founders, became the first commander of Mergentheim. Later he rose to be German master (Ger. Deutschmeister) in 1232 and grand master (Ger. Hochmeister) of the Teutonic Order in 1244, and died at Mergentheim in 1249. During the thirteenth century the Teutonic Order enlarged the settled area of Mergentheim, gave the inhabitants rights as burgesses, and attracted Jews (against whom there were riots in 1298). There were troubles with both the Hospitallers and the Hohenlohe family. The Teutonic Order refortified its main castle against the neighboring nobles and encouraged the foundation of a Dominican monastery, to the detriment of the Hospitaller parish. Between 1330 and 1355, the German master Wolfram von Nellenburg firmly established his order’s position in Mergentheim. Wolfram obtained imperial privileges: the right to build walls and ditches (1335), the ius civitatis, that is, a privileged status for the local court and liberties for the citizens (1340), the exclusion of all foreign jurisdiction, and the right of coinage (1355). This period saw the construction of a town wall and a separate hospital in rivalry with that of the Hospitallers. In 1343 the last Hohen-lohe castrum was bought, and in the following years many Hohenlohe vassals sold their possessions to the Teutonic Order. In 1355 the Hospitallers gave up their possessions, except their parish.
Mergentheim became the only important town in Franconia and indeed in southern Germany where the Teutonic Knights not only had a commandery, but were the local lords enjoyed full territorial independence. For this reason Mergentheim was chosen as permanent residence of the
German master after the destruction of the castle of Hor-neck during the Peasants’ War in 1525. In the same year Grand Master Albrecht von Brandenburg, under Lutheran influence, dissolved the order and transformed Prussia into a secular duchy for himself and his heirs under the suzerainty of his uncle Sigismund I, king of Poland. Those in the order who did not follow his lead accepted the authority of the German master at Mergentheim. By imperial and papal appointment, the German master began to act as grand master as well, and the central administration of the Teutonic Order was established at Mergentheim. In 1554 the Hospitallers finally sold their parish, so that from then on the Teutonic Order was the sole authority in the town and its surroundings.
Firmly entrenched at Mergentheim, the Teutonic Order survived the storms of the Reformation and defended its independent status against neighboring princes within the empire. A splendid Renaissance castle was begun in 1568 to house the Hoch - undDeutschmeister, his court, and officers. In the course of the Counter Reformation, Mergentheim acquired a seminary to instruct priests (1606), while new statutes recognized fighting against the Ottoman Turks in Hungary as the military obligation for knights who wanted to rise in the order’s hierarchy. Through repeated elections of Habsburg archdukes as high masters, the order became a kind of Habsburg appanage. Administrative reforms in the 1780s made Mergentheim the capital of an ecclesiastical principality whose possessions were scattered throughout southern Germany. But in 1809 Napoleon, at war with Austria, gave Mergentheim to the king of Wurttemberg. When Mergentheim was confirmed to Wurttemberg at the Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815, the Teutonic Order survived in the Habsburg Empire.
-Karl Borchardt
See also: Teutonic Order
Bibliography
Beschreibung des Oberamts Mergentheim (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1880).
Leistikow, Dankwart, “Die Burg des Deutschen Ordens in Mergentheim im 13. Jahrhundert,” Forschungen zu Burgen und Schlossern 6 (2001), 177-191.
Seiler, Alois, “Der Deutsche Orden als Stadtherr im Reich: Das Beispiel Mergentheim,” in Stadt und Orden, ed. Udo Arnold (Marburg: Elwert, 1993), pp. 155-187.
Weiss, Dieter J., Die Geschichte der Deutschordens-Ballei Franken im Mittelalter (Neustadt an der Aisch: Degener, 1991).
Wojtecki, Dieter, “Der Deutsche Orden im wurttembergischen Franken: Zur Entwicklung, Besitz - und Personalgeschichte der Kommenden Mergentheim, Heilbronn und Horneck im 13. Jahrhundert,” Wurttembergisch Franken 60 (1976), 55-113.
World History
